Community Calendar

Westminster Choir College of Rider University's popular holiday concert returns with evenings of holiday music and readings, featuring performances by our Chapel Choir, Symphonic Choir, Concert Bell Choir, Jubilee Singers, and Westminster Choir. This year’s performances of An Evening of Readings and Carols will be Friday, December 12th and Saturday, December 13th, 2025 at 8 p.m. in the Princeton University Chapel.

In their GatherNYC debut, Renaissance String Quartet, founded in 2021 by violinists Randall Goosby and Jeremiah Blacklow, violist Jameel Martin, and cellist Daniel Hass, performs music from its debut album Love & Levity. The quartet feels a responsibility to command a diverse repertoire of classic, underrepresented, and new works, so they can contribute to the reclamation, redefinition, and continuation of a musical tradition that belongs to all of us. They represent and articulate an inclusive vision of the future of classical music, which sees a culture of music wherein all lives and histories are welcomed and celebrated.

GatherNYC is a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd. The 2025-2026 season includes 31 concerts that run from October 2025 through May 2026, with concerts held every Sunday at 11am in The Theater at MAD.

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am.

Celebrate the holiday season with Dr. Ruth Ochs and the Westminster Community Orchestra at their annual free family holiday concert on Wednesday, December 17 at 7:30 p.m. in Hillman Hall, in the Marian Buckelew Cullen Center on the Westminster Campus, 101 Walnut Lane, Princeton. Audience members requiring seating assistance should arrive at 7:15 p.m. Free-will cash donations to benefit area food pantries will be accepted.

The festive performance will feature holiday favorites as “Frosty the Snowman,” “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” and more. The program will also include Tchaikovsky’s March from The Nutcracker and the “Polonaise” finale from Symphony No, 3, plus compositions written by two members of the orchestra: Beth LaPat’s Chanukah Songs and the World Premiere of Cliff Wilson’s Opening Presents. The audience will be invited to lend their voices in Leroy Anderson’s popular "A Christmas Festival."

No tickets are required for the free hour-long program. For more information on the performance, please contact the Westminster Conservatory office by phone, 609-921-7104, email, westminster.play@gmail.com, or visit Rider’s event page, https://www.rider.edu/about/events/westminster-community-orchestra-holiday-favorites-and-sing-along-0

Handel: Messiah
presented by Tempesta di Mare | Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra

Dec. 18 at 7:00 PM | Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
Dec. 21 at 4:00 PM | Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse

Join us for a performance of this holiday favorite with the forces and sound Handel wrote for. His masterpiece will be performed Tempesta-style: on baroque instruments and mostly unconducted!

Tempesta di Mare | Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra
Gwyn Roberts & Richard Stone, directors | Emlyn Ngai, concertmaster

Choir of Christ Church Christiana Hundred, choir
Bruce Barber, conductor

Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano
Sylvia Leith, alto
Steven Soph, tenor
Randall Scarlata, baritone

La Fiocco’s end-of-year Holiday Concert features music from the Middle Ages to the present day, with a new composition by Owen Davitt written for this occasion. Please join us for this festive event on Friday, December 19th, 7:30 PM at Trinity Episcopal Church, 6587 Upper York Road (Sugan Road and Rte 263), Solebury (New Hope), Pennsylvania.

La Fiocco
Owen Davitt, recorder & crumhorn
Allen Hamrick, recorder, crumhorn, duclian, & baroque bassoon
Brian Morris, young artist, recorder & crumhorn
Jorge Torres lute, theorbo & baroque guitar
Benjamin Rechel, viola da gamba
Cameron Khan, harpsichord & organ
Lewis R. Baratz, artistic director, recorder, organ

The Seasons
Philadelphia Premiere
Music by Antonio Vivaldi
Based on The Four Seasons with additional arias and ensembles by Vivaldi
Libretto by Sarah Ruhl 
Co-Conceived by Anthony Roth Costanzo and Sarah Ruhl
In collaboration with Pam Tanowitz and Zack Winokur
Directed by Zack Winokur, Choregraphed by Pam Tanowitz
Developed by SCENE and AMOC*
Performed in English, Italian, and Latin with English supertitles

You could say Vivaldi had a kind of synesthesia when writing The Four Seasons. What does being cold feel and sound like? MacArthur Award-winning playwright and librettist Sarah Ruhl joins Anthony Roth Costanzo to co-conceive a tapestry of Vivaldi’s music, telling an original story about a world in which the seasons are completely out of order. Tony Award-winning set designer Mimi Lien collaborates with M.I.T. materials technologist Jack Forman to fuse art and science, bringing atmospheric events to the stage. Celebrated choreographer Pam Tanowitz creates a maelstrom of dance, director Zack Winokur helms the production, and Corrado Rovaris conducts the rapturous piece, which stars Costanzo.

All tickets are Pick Your Price, starting at $11. Any amount above $11 helps support other operagoers and the work we present on stage. In addition, $10 rush tickets will be available before the performance.

For more information, visit https://www.operaphila.org/whats-on/2526-season/the-seasons/.

The Seasons
Philadelphia Premiere
Music by Antonio Vivaldi
Based on The Four Seasons with additional arias and ensembles by Vivaldi
Libretto by Sarah Ruhl 
Co-Conceived by Anthony Roth Costanzo and Sarah Ruhl
In collaboration with Pam Tanowitz and Zack Winokur
Directed by Zack Winokur, Choregraphed by Pam Tanowitz
Developed by SCENE and AMOC*
Performed in English, Italian, and Latin with English supertitles

You could say Vivaldi had a kind of synesthesia when writing The Four Seasons. What does being cold feel and sound like? MacArthur Award-winning playwright and librettist Sarah Ruhl joins Anthony Roth Costanzo to co-conceive a tapestry of Vivaldi’s music, telling an original story about a world in which the seasons are completely out of order. Tony Award-winning set designer Mimi Lien collaborates with M.I.T. materials technologist Jack Forman to fuse art and science, bringing atmospheric events to the stage. Celebrated choreographer Pam Tanowitz creates a maelstrom of dance, director Zack Winokur helms the production, and Corrado Rovaris conducts the rapturous piece, which stars Costanzo.

All tickets are Pick Your Price, starting at $11. Any amount above $11 helps support other operagoers and the work we present on stage. In addition, $10 rush tickets will be available before the performance.

For more information, visit https://www.operaphila.org/whats-on/2526-season/the-seasons/.

GatherNYC welcomes back acclaimed harpist Bridget Kibbey for her second appearance on the series. In a virtuosic and charming holiday baroque program, Kibbey plays a set of solo transcriptions by J.S. Bach and Domenico Scarlatti alongside her own improvisations and arrangements celebrating the holiday season.

GatherNYC is a revolutionary concert experience founded in 2018 by cellist Laura Metcalf and guitarist Rupert Boyd. The 2025-2026 season includes 31 concerts that run from October 2025 through May 2026, with concerts held every Sunday at 11am in The Theater at MAD.

Guests at GatherNYC are served exquisite live classical music performed by New York’s immensely talented artists, artisanal coffee and pastries, a taste of spoken word, and a brief celebration of silence. The entire experience lasts one hour and evokes the community and spiritual nourishment of a religious service – but the religion is music, and all are welcome. Coffee and pastries are served before each performance at 10:30am.

Handel: Messiah
presented by Tempesta di Mare | Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra

Dec. 18 at 7:00 PM | Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill
Dec. 21 at 4:00 PM | Church of the Holy Trinity, Rittenhouse

Join us for a performance of this holiday favorite with the forces and sound Handel wrote for. His masterpiece will be performed Tempesta-style: on baroque instruments and mostly unconducted!

Tempesta di Mare | Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra
Gwyn Roberts & Richard Stone, directors | Emlyn Ngai, concertmaster

Choir of Christ Church Christiana Hundred, choir
Bruce Barber, conductor

Josefien Stoppelenburg, soprano
Sylvia Leith, alto
Steven Soph, tenor
Randall Scarlata, baritone

Join Monmouth Civic Chorus for our beloved annual holiday concert, which audiences and musicians agree is one of the most joyous days of the year. This season’s program includes highlights from Handel’s Messiah in Act One and stirring settings of your favorite carols in Act Two. The chorus is joined by an elite professional orchestra composed of some of the country's most in-demand musicians.

For a 14th and final season, Monmouth Civic Chorus will perform under the baton of Artistic Director Dr. Ryan James Brandau, recently hailed by The New York Times as conducting "the gold standard" Messiah.